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I would siphon some off and give it a taste. Smelling right out of the carboy after a year might not be indicative of the wine. It might be fine if it was topped up. Might not have a long life because of the increased exposure. I've never fooled around with vinegar, so unfortunately I have no...

It's really tough to say what might be going on without knowing anything about the fermentation... what the SG was before and what it is now. Assuming your taste buds are correct and there isn't any sugar left, the fermentation is complete, and the wine should be racked off into an appropriate...

I've never used D47 or QA23 on highly concentrated juices, but have had great success with both of those on fruit wines and meads. Great recommendations. The QA23 has become a "go to" yeast for us. Thanks Jericurl for letting me know they work well with the concentrates too. :h And great point...

If you do increase the SG by adding sugar, keep in mind it may make the wine even more unbalanced... thin flavor with higher alcohol. To wineforfun's point, the kind of kit would be important to consider (big red or light white). I'd just let it run as is and see how it turns out. If it's too...

They're not cutting anything out or doing any nefarious... they're just deliberately crafting a wine that is intended to be consumed in the short term, between 2 to 5 years. There is no wine that tasted great at 15 years old that also tasted great at 2 years old, those are 2 completely different...

Thanks Scooter. I was under the impression that distilled water was more alkaline. Good to know, thanks.

I've had no issues, over many years and many hundreds of bottles, corking or uncorking screw cap bottles.

I look forward to hearing from the chemistry geeks, but I believe it's the pH of distilled water that makes it not preferable.

The rule I've always heard is, if it tastes OK you can use it for wine. There are plenty of places that have funky tasting tap water, so filtering it or going to the grocery store and getting "spring water" (quotes since most spring water is just filtered tap water) might make sense. Even...

The chemistry is beyond me, but "ageing" is basically some compounds in the wine breaking down and others combining to make new ones. So the more "stuff" there is the more likely it's appropriate to age well. That's why big reds and chardonnay work best, because they have more complexity to...

I've never heard of mahlab, sounds interesting Jericurl. I will have to get some and experiment. It sounds like it is a common ingredient for you to use in your meads?

We've corked all of our screwtop bottles with no issues. Sometimes they are a tiny bit bigger aperture, but the cork still makes a good seal (we've just noticed that the corks come out a little easier sometimes). I understand the concern about safety with the glass wall being thinner, but we've...

We've come to the conclusion that all our wines taste much better after about a year. That's about the time we start hitting them regularly and are OK giving as gifts. We've had many wines that were drinkable before that, and some wines take a few years to really reach their prime, but a year is...

Love the zombie analogy! Like it's been said, if there is sugar and good conditions, the yeast will start chewing away. The yeast don't really die (the colony I mean, individual yeast cells do die), but just go dormant. Bring the temp up into the 60's and give it a good stir, and I bet it comes...

I would recommend a very strong yeast for highly concentrated juice; EC-1118 is always a good choice, but K1V-1116 is good for fruitier flavors (EC-1118 is neutral, meaning it doesn't add a whole lot to the character of the wine). Some yeasts don't do a good job of fermenting concentrates, so...

kmeta (potassium metabisulfite, in your case condensed form camden tablets) is used to suppress yeast and bacteria that you don't want, and also provides protection against oxidation. The cultured yeast you buy is much more tolerant of the sulfite, so it can handle larger amounts. You can...

We've made pure mango, mango mead, mango/peach/apricot, and mango Liebfraumilch. There are a few different kinds of mangoes, and some have more pulp than others. I'll have to check my notes on weight of fruit, and sugar and water additions, but I can definitely say there's a huge amount of loss...

This sounds really interesting, and hope you post about the results. I've never heard of anyone making corn wine before.

What was your ending SG? If you back sweetened with "wine conditioner" then that has sorbate in it, which explains why you don't have bottle bombs exploding. :h Any time you back sweeten you should add sorbate and kmeta to make sure the yeast don't eat all the sugar you added. Not doing so...

Our experience with anything raspberry is that the flavor is very intense, so it may take a few batches of differing dilutions to find the flavor you like. As Bernard said, the cans of concentrate usually do better with less than what's recommended on the package. We primarily use simple syrup...